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UK e-Health Week 2017 – the place to be if you believe in the power of health IT

Article posted on: April 10, 2017

Author:

Jane Dwelly, Director of Strategy, HIMSS UK @janedwelly

UK eHealth Week returns to Olympia for a third year on 3rd and 4th May and is designed to give all delegates the latest news, views and workshops on health and care IT and the digital health agenda. Let me tell you more about what will be a profitable spend of your time among like-minded and enthusiastic colleagues: all of whom are convinced that IT has the power to transform health and care for patients and those who serve them.

HIMSS UK and BCS have designed the event with the full support of NHS England and NHS Digital: the system leaders who are implementing the digital agenda set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View (now two years old: yes really!) and the National Information Board’s (NIB) Personalised Health and Care 2020. NHS Digital, will hold its board meeting at Olympia on Wednesday and NIB holds its leadership summit on Thursday.

Global Digital Exemplars and so much more

On both days we’re running five theatres seating between 120 and 200 people, and we’ve given these over to organisations, including NHS England and NHS Digital, so they can run closely curated workshops and presentations. There’s some really interesting stuff going on here and a lot of work has gone into making these workshops true learning environments. For example, and in no particular order: Anne Cooper is bringing digital health experts together for a whole day exploring nurse informatics; Paul Rice is holding an afternoon’s workshop on the Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) programme; Dr Amir Mehrkar and his team are re-running parts of the recent, and wildly successful, Interoperability Summit; and Juliet Bauer brings the latest thinking on digital empowerment for patients and public through NHS.UK. And there is so much more – I guarantee you could spend the whole day going from theatre to theatre and it would be time well spent. In particular, BCS is giving a series of workshops and presentations with a tight focus on patient safety, data driven service improvements and citizen empowerment through IT; to which all are welcome. Check out the full agenda and register – then you can download the app and build your own agenda.

It’s been a real privilege to work with the hospital trusts designated as GDEs as we get ready to welcome them onto the GDE zone - a central point of the event. Everyone is thrilled to be designated as a GDE and keen to talk about their strategies and plans. We’re giving each trust a pod from which to hold court throughout the event and time in our zone theatre to broadcast to a wider audience. There’ll be lots of networking, new connections will be made and plenty of rich learning across the zone on both days.

System leaders to present keynotes

Last and far from least: the main stage. As you would expect we will have a packed main stage agenda with keynotes from system leaders including Matthew Swindells, Keith McNeil and CNO Jane Cummings. Jane will be launching the 2017 Kate Granger Compassionate Care Awards alongside Chris Pointon, Kate’s husband and healthcare campaigner. HIMSS is proud to support these important and impactful awards across the world and nowhere more so than in the NHS, where Kate’s work with #hellomynameis began and where it continues to grow.

UK e-Health Week 2017 is free for colleagues from the NHS, public, charitable and academic sectors. Register now in minutes at www.ukehealthweek.com